Robert Louis Stevenson

“ I have now 12 chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time the month is out, one-half should be completed, and I'll be back at drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think of Scott turning out GUY MANNERING in three weeks! What a pull of work: heavens, what thews and sinews! And here am I, my head spinning from having only re-written seven not very difficult pages - and not very good when done. Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself, to make such a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an old nursery yarn, not worth spitting on when done. ”

“ I don't know what day this is now (the 29th) , but I have finished my two chapters, ninth and tenth, of SAMOA in time for the mail, and feel almost at peace. The tenth was the hurricane, a difficult problem; it so tempted one to be literary; and I feel sure the less of that there is in my little handbook, the more chance it has of some utility. Then the events are complicated, seven ships to tell of, and sometimes three of them together; O, it was quite a job. But I think I have my facts pretty correct, and for once, in my sickening yarn, they are handsome facts: creditable to all concerned ”

“ Low in your ear - and don't let the papers get hold of it - she is of no family. None, they say; literally a common woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who MAY be villeins; but we give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of Vailima ”